Read Online The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin, Andrew Bromfield - Free Book Online Page B

temporary lord and sovereign with frank derision. “What do you wish to ask about?”
    Erast Fandorin hesitated. “Will the answer be honest?”
    “Honesty is for the honest, and in our games there is but little honesty.” Bezhetskaya laughed with a barely perceptible hint of bitterness. “I can promise candor, though. But please don’t disappoint me by asking anything stupid. I regard you as an interesting specimen.”
    Fandorin hurled himself recklessly into the attack. “What do you know about the death of Pyotr Alexandrovich Kokorin?”
    His hostess was not frightened—she did not flinch—but Erast Fandorin imagined that he saw her eyes narrow for an instant. “Why do you want to know that?”
    “I will explain afterward. First answer the question.”
    “All right, I will. Kokorin was killed by a certain very cruel lady.” Bezhetskaya lowered her thick black lashes for a moment and from beneath them darted a rapid, scorching glance at him, like a rapier thrust. “And that lady goes by the name of love.”
    “Love for you? Did he used to come here?”
    “He did. And apart from me I believe there is no one here with whom to fall in love. Except perhaps Orest Kirillovich.” She laughed.
    “And do you feel no pity at all for Kokorin?” asked Fandorin, amazed at such callousness.
    The queen of Egypt shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “Everyone is master of his own fate. But is that not enough questions for you?”
    “No,” Erast Fandorin said hurriedly. “How was Akhtyrtsev involved? And what is the significance of the bequest to Lady Astair?”
    The buzz of voices suddenly grew louder, and Fandorin glanced around in annoyance.
    “You don’t care for my tone?” Hippolyte asked in a thunderous voice, harassing the drunken Akhtyrtsev. “Then how do you care for this, my dear fellow?” And he shoved the student’s forehead with the palm of his hand, apparently without any great strength, but the miserable Akhtyrtsev went flying back against an armchair, plumped down into it, and stayed sitting there, blinking his eyes in bewilderment.
    “By your leave, Count, but this will not do!” said Erast Fandorin, dashing across. “You may be stronger, but that does not give you any right…”
    However, his faltering speech, at which the count had scarcely even glanced around, was drowned out by the resounding tones of the mistress of the house.
    “Hippolyte! Get out! And do not dare set foot in here again until you are sober!”
    The count swore and stomped off toward the door. The other guests gazed curiously at the wretchedly abject, limp form of Akhtyrtsev, who was not making the slightest effort to rise to his feet.
    “You are the only one here who is anything like a man,” Amalia Kazimirovna whispered to Fandorin, as she set off toward the corridor. “Take him away. And be sure to stay with him.”
    Almost immediately the lanky butler John appeared, having exchanged his livery for a black frock coat and starched shirtfront. He helped to get Akhtyrtsev as far as the door and then rammed his top hat onto his head. Bezhetskaya did not come out to take her leave, and a glance at the butler’s dour face told Erast Fandorin that he had best be on his way.

CHAPTER FIVE
    in which serious unpleasantness lies in wait for our hero
    OUT IN THE STREET, ONCE HE HAD TAKEN A a breath of fresh air, Akhtyrtsev appeared to revive somewhat. He was standing firmly on his own two feet without swaying, and Erast Petrovich decided that it was no longer necessary to support him by the elbow.
    “Let’s take a stroll as far as Sretenka Street,” he said, “and I’ll put you in a cab there. Do you have a long journey home?”
    “Home?” In the flickering light of the kerosene streetlamp the student’s pale face appeared like a mask. “Oh, no, I’m not going home, not for the world! Let’s take a drive somewhere, shall we? I feel in the mood for a talk. You saw…the way they treat me. What’s your name? I